CFP: Reading the &quot;Exotic&quot;: South Asia and Its Others (9/15/06; collection)

This volume examines how the notion of exoticism is manifested in thediscourse of South Asia. Since the seventeenth century, the Euro-centricimaginary has represented South Asia in terms of the sublime and/or thefeminized Other. In the postcolonial context, some native and diasporicSouth Asian writers themselves have redirected that trajectory to articulatethe "West" as an exotic space. Alternatively, other writers have sought toappropriate the trope of the "exotic" as one way of subverting pastorientalist scholarship on the "East." The theoretical and thematic breadthof postcolonial literature and scholarship today makes it possible torethink South Asia as a constantly shifting site in which "exoticism"represents the new dialogic exchange the region is currently building withits geographical, political, and cultural "others." Consequently, themulti-layered dynamic of Otherness that today underscores relations betweenSouth Asia, its diaspora, and the global community highlights thesignificance of exoticism in imagining, reading, and articulatingproductions and limitations of South Asian subjectivity today.

For this anthology, we are looking for papers that explore articulations andimplications of exoticism in reading what may be construed as the"phenomenon" of South Asia today globally and within South Asia itself, forexample, through caste, citizenship, gender, and race.